Hidden True Crime - Las Vegas Reporter Brutally Murdered: Jeff German's Assassination

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Jeff German, an investigative reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, was deeply dedicated to his work—a commitment that might have ultimately cost him his life. Jeff was a well-known figure in the community, celebrated for his fearless coverage of notorious mobsters, corrupt politicians, and criminals. In September 2022, he was fatally stabbed by an attacker outside his residence. Prosecutors allege that Robert Telles, a local politician, is responsible and was later charged with Jeff's murder. As of the recording of this episode, his trial is currently ongoing. Find out the easiest way to get to sleep, and stay asleep when you click https://shopbeam.com/hiddentruecrime and use code TRUECRIME to get up to 35% at checkout. Audio Clips: Law & Crime Network https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrjlE8Cws2M Las Vegas Review-Journal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhZGWZhWcik Lauren Matthias was a television reporter for a decade and has followed the Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell case since 2019. She and her husband, Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, started Hidden True Crime in 2020 with their Season, 'Beyond the Veil,' a psychological deep dive into the doomsday murders and prophet. What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lately, I've been trying to be more intentional about what I wear, intentional about everything, just choosing pieces that feel effortless, still put together, timeless, but also not overthinking it every morning. It's why I keep going back to quince. Their pieces just make getting dressed easier and I feel so classy. I feel elevated. The fits are flattering. The fabric is really high quality. Everything is wearable day to day. I actually got this really, really, beautiful yellow V-neck midi dress from them, and I paired it with some Italian leather sandals. It's one of those outfits that just works. It feels polished but still comfortable. It's exactly what I've been looking for. What surprises me, though, is the quality for the price. Quince uses

premium materials like European linen, organic cotton, but they cut out the middleman. So everything is priced way lower than you'd expect. Refresh. your every day with luxury you can actually use. Head to quince.com slash hidden true crime for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince, quince, ui and c e.com slash hidden true crime for free shipping and 365 day of returns. Quince.com slash hidden true crime. This week I sat in a hushed courtroom in Las Vegas and I watched along with the jury footage from a doorbell camera showing a man in a wide-brim straw hat and orange clothing, walk towards the end of a cul-de-sac

into the yard of a house and disappear through a side gate. Minutes later, that same doorbell camera footage, shows the garage door of the same house open and the homeowner, a well-known investigative journalist for the Las Vegas Review Journal, a man named Jeff Gehrman,

walks outside directly to where the man in orange laid in wait. From behind the gate, the man in orange appears again, and an apparent struggle ensues. The attack lasts minutes. German clearly fought for his life, and the DNA left under his fingernails

will be another crime story he tells after death. A Las Vegas investigative reporter is brutally stabbed to death outside of his home. The man accused of the heinous slain is a politician who is at the center of his reports. Jeff German was a local legend in the Las Vegas area, known for his reports on infamous mobsters, murderers, and crooked.

politicians. According to his coworkers, German wrote about terrible people who have done awful things for over 40 years. So when German was discovered lying outside of his home with multiple stab wounds, four of which were to the neck, there was a list of people investigators looked at who they thought could have been connected to the killing. But what name seemingly stood out in the bunch? And that was Clark County Public Administrator Robert Tellis, who German had written a number of articles about. According to German's reports, Tellis displayed hostile behavior at his office. Many of those who worked with the former public official believed he was acting as though he was above the law and even accused the county of turning a blind eye to Tellis' actions. So they turned to German.

The journalist reportedly first learned about the accusations of a toxic workplace from four female employees, one of which was Rita Reed, his former top assistant, who called Tellis a horrible human being and a monster. Tellis' elected position was to administer wills and estates for Clark County. But Garman reported Tellis bullied his employees and even had an inappropriate relationship with one of them. While Tellis denied having the improper relationship and that he mistreated his employees, he later lost his primary bid for re-election. In response to Garman's many reports, Tellis fired off a series of tweets calling Garmin directly a liar, referring to him as a wild animal and claiming Garman was obsessed with him. After German's murder on September 6 of 2022, authorities released this surveillance photo, showing a person wearing an orange reflective shirt and a large straw sun hat, similarly to a

landscaper. Two days after the photo was released, authorities released surveillance video of the suspect, as one of German's coworkers noticed the video reminded him of a walking shot he had taken of TELUS when Gorman interviewed him at his office. Then another clue. Authorities released a photo of the suspect's car, a maroon Yucondinale. And the Investigators quickly received tips that Tellas also had a car that looked similar to the vehicle, which turned out to be registered to his wife. This would prompt German's colleagues at the Las Vegas Review Journal to go to Tellis' home. And when his colleagues arrived to the politician's home,

they witnessed Tellis walking out of the driveway where the Maroon Yukonan-Ucanali was parked as Tellis began washing it. Then in the early hours of September 7th, five days after the murder, Tellis was brought in for questioning as police searched his home and cars. According to investigators, a gym shoe and duffel bag were collected as well, which resembled what was seen in the surveillance video of the suspect. Plus another startling clue. Investigators also searched Tellez's garage and found pieces of a cut-up sun hat, similar to the straw hat the suspect was seen wearing.

The murder shocked the local community and the journalism world. It turns out that that DNA under German's fingernails helped lead to the arrest of Robert Tellis. However, when police arrived to arrest Tellis, he reportedly refused to leave his home. According to CBS News, Tellis made comments associated with self-harm, which prompted SWAT to move into his home. After Tellis was rolled out of his house on a stretcher and was taken to the hospital for self-inflicted injuries. Six weeks after, Tellis was booked into the Clark County Detention Center and was indicted by a grand jury for murder. Tellis pleaded not guilty to the shocking crime.

And although he faces a first-degree murder charge, which could carry the ultimate punishment of death in the state of Nevada, prosecutors announced in October of 2022, they won't seek the death penalty against the former politician. Then in a February 2023 interview with news outlet KTNV, Telas denied killing Jeff Gehrman and even claimed he was framed for the journalist's murder, despite having no proof he was framed. He claimed the physical evidence police found at his home was planted. And Tellis claimed he wasn't the person who appeared in the surveillance video at German's house the day of the murder. The case has drawn significant media attention, mostly highlighting the dangers journalists face in their line of work, especially when reporting on powerful figures.

Tellis pleaded not guilty, but evidence, including DNA and that surveillance footage of the killing, links Talis to the crime. Talis maintains he was framed. The case underscores the importance of protecting journalists and ensuring they can work without fear of violent retribution, Jeff Gehrman's legacy as a fear of. journalist remains a poignant reminder of the vital role of the press and holding the powerful accountable. While Tellis's murder trial continues in Las Vegas, John and I explore in depth the assassination of Jeff Gehrman. Hello, Hidden Jens. It's time for another live hidden hour, a live recording of our podcast, Hidden True Crime with yours truly and Dr. John Matthias, forensic psychologist, also my co-host, partner in crime, and my spouse.

But we are going to be talking about a case tonight that is very close to home for us. And I say that figuratively and literally close to home. It is a case in our hometown. And it is a case where I attended opening statements this week. in the trial is the Robert Talas trial and the victim in this case is Jeff German a true crime journalist

who was brutally assassinated and the man charged in his killing as a politician the motive prosecutors say were terrible stories or not terrible but stories that Jeff German wrote about terrible things happening in Tallas's office in Clark County,

Clark County administrator. It's very chilling, very shocking when you really think about that. If convicted, a politician murdering a journalist for truth seeking and telling the truth and uncovering a lot. So we want to delve into this very, very important story. in-depth. I have so many questions for Dr. John. And Dr. John, I'd like to ask you where you want to begin. Let's start with, so there was some video that the prosecution showed in opening statements. There's a moment where the alleged perpetrator Robert Tulles returns to the scene of the crime. And when don't we take a look at that? The assailant leaves Mr. German there in the rock,

has his bag with him and walks down the street. He goes further down the street toward Wintergreen, and he ultimately goes back to that maroon SUV. That maroon SUV, though, then proceeds south on Wintergreen, and it actually heads back in the direction of German's house. And you can kind of see it parked in front, The individual gets out, goes back towards where the body is, and then the individual returns back to the Yukon.

So if we want to understand, tell us, we're going to mainly do a tribute to Jeff Kierman, but we also want to talk about the perpetrator and try to understand some of the elements that drive this perpetrator, this alleged perpetrator. He's still, he's in trial right now. But a big question here, for me in understanding this case and understanding this perpetrator is why does he return to the scene of the crime?

So he commits the surrenderous act, and you can see from the video, the prosecution played it. He goes back. He circles back. He was stabbed to death, by the way. Yeah. Seven times. Four in the neck, three in the body. So the alleged perpetrator tell us, which, by the way,

the prosecution has showed quite convincingly that that's his car. The car is registered to his wife, but that's the exact car registered to his wife. But he returns to the crime scene, and then he leaves. The reason this is important to understand, we're going to talk about this, but the reason this is important to understand is because the vast majority of perpetrators and felons I have evaluated would never do this. in fact, like, it's almost a natural response for human beings when you commit a heinous act. It's a very natural response to head for the hills.

You run for the hills and you hide and you, right, you hide anywhere so that you're not seen. You try to evade detection, but that's not occurring here. What's occurring here is you have the alleged perpetrator going back to the scene and not just going back to the scene, but spending some time at the scene. And so I think a big piece of this puzzle, or at least an important piece of this puzzle, will be trying to understand why this alleged perpetrator Robert Tellis returns back to the crime scene. So I want to start with that because this is such an important moment. And we'll go back to this and try to figure this out in a little bit. But to understand why this crime occurs, I think this is a piece we need to really figure out.

Yes. And a lot of speculation. Did he drop something? Did he want to make sure he was dead? Did he, was he curious? So we will answer that question together. So those are all accurate to some degree, but we'll dig into more of the psychological elements

of the answer a little bit. He parked his car far away, then got back in, he's like, oh, I'm just going to drive it up now. Right. He commits the crime. He leaves. So the car isn't parked that far away, by the way. The car's parked fairly close.

It's just down the road. But then when he comes back to check on the crime scene, yeah, it's right there. This is the doorbell camera of the neighbors who have known Jeff German for over 20 years. And his garage is open, so they suspect something is amiss. And sure enough, it's caught on camera. But yeah, the alleged perpetrator parks right in front of the home, right in front of the scene of the murder. What's going on with that? If you take a fictional example of a criminal like Walter White from Breaking Bad,

you know, this would be more typical of a criminal. I know this, I know obviously that's a fictional series, but Walter White, when Walter Wright learns that the authorities are on to him and they're probably going to get him, he changes his identity. He hightails out of town to nowhere, like the middle of nowhere in Maine, in the middle of winter with no services. no electricity, no internet, right? Like, he just wants to disappear.

He doesn't want to be caught because he knows if he's caught. He's going to spend the rest of his life in prison. But this guy, this guy goes back. Then he goes home. There's no attempt whatsoever here to, you know, to leave town or to try to, you know, evade the authorities. He just, he's brazen. He just, let's go back, you know.

So this is an interesting. interesting moment in this trial in this case. And we need to talk about it. We'll talk about it. Okay. We'll talk about it. Where do you want to go now? I want to talk a little bit about, you know, I see tonight as a, I think we're definitely going to dedicate this show to Jeff Gehrman. And I see this is a tribute to Jeff Gehrman. And I remember when I want to tell a little. story here. I remember when I first moved to Vegas after graduate school, this was like 1996-ish. I remember when I first moved to town, that's when people read newspapers, by the way.

But back then, that's what people did. And so the newspapers were a primary means of obtaining information. And I remember there was a story that broke not long after I moved to Las Vegas. And it was by Jeff Gehrman. It was about an execution-style murder of, a mafia member. And the reason I remember it is because I was fairly new to town. And at the time, you know, there was some belief that Las Vegas was transitioning away from the mob. And, you know, like there's, Vegas has always been a town that was essentially built by the mafia. And I, you know, there might may or may not, I don't know, still be mafia ties here. It's, it's not totally clear, but I'm sure there's some influence there,

but there was a mobster whose nickname was Fat Herbie Blitzstein. You know, at the time I was thinking, I thought the mob was gone from Las Vegas. I thought, you know, that when I moved here, that, you know, corporate interests were slowly kind of taking over Vegas and all the casinos were, for the most part, owned by corporations by that point. But here was the story by Gehrman kind of reminding everyone

that the mafia still was around as of 1997. It was well written. I remember reading it. It was well written. And I remember then learning that Jeff Gehrman was someone who took on a famous mobster, Tony Spillotro, Tony Spillotro, who was portrayed by Joe Pesci in the movie Casino. And I thought, man, this guy, this is amazing. Like, this guy really has some courage.

This guy really doesn't care about. The consequences of what he's invested in seeking and telling the truth to the fullest extent possible. And he doesn't care who has to take on. He just wants to get to the truth. He wants to provide an accurate story. And I remember at that point having a lot of respect for what he was doing. And I remembered thinking, this is a journalist worth paying attention to. And in fact, I did pay attention to him.

and he showed a long history of exposing corruption, corporate corruption, political corruption. He took on criminal cases. In fact, there's a really peculiar case that he covered, and he was instrumental in finding, rooting out some evidence that turned out to be really important in the case. And I don't know if our community will remember this case, but there was a woman Susan Winters. Yeah. She was deceased in January of 2015.

And her husband, Dr. Gregory Brent, was his nickname. Dr. Gregory Brent Dennis was a psychologist. I say was because presumably he's in prison now and presumably he's not practicing. I would assume his license has been revoked. But Brent Dennis calls 911 and says reports his, his wife is deceased. There happened to be, he says that she was depressed

and that she ingested a bunch of antifreeze. And that led to her demise. But her family really questioned that version of events. And her family hired a private investigator to look into it. And the family also brought the story to Jeff Gehrman. And Jeff Gehrman was really important in kind of exposing some of the key pieces of that particular case. One of those pieces, by the way, was Brent Dennis, Gehrman discovered, was purchasing drugs from his patients. So think about that for a moment. I can tell you right now

that that is high, I hope that's highly unusual in our profession. I mean, I got into this profession to attempt to assist people, not to acquire drugs from them, right? Because Because if you're acquiring drugs from your patients, you're not really helping them. You know, you're in a position where you're helping yourself a lot more than you're helping your patients. So that was a mind-boggling piece of information that not only did Jeff Gehrman and the people who covered the case, including private investigators and police, realize that this guy, Brent Dennis, was a drug addict and was requiring drugs from drug dealers. he was also purchasing drugs from his patients. And the motive, the suspected motive, was that he didn't want to divorce his wife.

So his wife, Susan Winters, was an attorney, and she was also a part-time judge. She was 48 years old at the time of her death. They had two children. They have two children. The suspected motive was that he didn't want to divorce because there was some belief that if he divorced Susan, she would report him to the state board of psychological examiners, which is my board in the state of Nevada that regulates psychologists, that she would report him to the board for having a drug problem

and even potentially for having some knowledge that he was purchasing drugs from his patients. And if she did that, she would ruin his career and more than likely he would lose his license. That was one of the apparent motives. They also learned that Susan Winters, the wife, had a life insurance policy valued it over a million dollars that Brent Dennis learned would go to him if she happened to commit suicide. So there's on the record a call from Brent Dennis, the psychologist, to the insurance company asking if suicide is a legitimate means through which payment would be made to him in the event of her untimely death. So there were, all of this, by the way, wasn't known, of course. This was all part of the investigation and Jeff German's stories. And so I was just.

Jeff German's investigation. Yeah. This is obviously this particular case is more in our wheelhouse. But I knew of this case and I followed this case closely. And I was just kind of mesmerized and riveted by German's reporting. And so I feel some kinship with Jeff German, not just because when I, I entered town in Las Vegas many years ago that German was an outstanding reporter, but that he was continuing to report on these types of cases. And he was continuing to uncover information that

nobody else was. And that he continued to find these sources that he held, that he held it strictly confidential, but these sources that really helped him get to the bottom of matters. And so I feel a lot of camaraderie and closeness with him in the sense that you and I, in some senses, do something similar. You know, we we try to find information to make sense of cases. We use a lot of sources that we take a lot of pride in keeping confidential. And we would never expose those sources under any circumstances. And German never did, by the way. It was well known in Las Vegas that he had probably the widest network of sources of any

journalist in this community. And he always protected them no matter what. always protected his sources even in death. Can I share that now? Yeah. Even in death, he made sure that there couldn't be FOIA requests or digging deep into the review journal's sources and Jeff Gehrman's computers so that even in death, he would protect his sources throughout decades of reporting and keeping them safe and those people safe. And I admire that so much because his sources were everything. He protected them at all costs.

And so even after death, the Las Vegas Review Journal, his paper has made sure that police cannot get a search warrant into his computers and have them end up in boyodox to protect his sources. Yeah, for sure. And then going back to Susan Winters, that was a death that was going to be a suicide until he sought justice for Susan. and investigated further. He took on very difficult high-risk cases that could potentially post some risk to himself. And he was fearless about doing that. He was extremely courageous. And he was more intent upon uncovering the truth and really revealing corruption or crime or felonies, no matter what it took.

I have a lot of admiration for that. So I think we're recovering this tonight because of my respect for Jeff German and the fact that he's, he was in our community and he was such an instrumental part of our community. And it's just a horrendous crime. So I want to, I want to pay tribute to him. And I want to kind of look at the silver linings here too, if there are any. I mean, he's, he's missed. But I think he's also left behind an important legacy, which we want to honor tonight.

Yes, we do. I mean, I have so many questions for you. about the man on trial. Now, before we continue, a quick word from our sponsor, because gems, as a busy mom and a journalist who needs to make every minute count, whether working or creating more quality family time, insomnia is not my friend and it can throw everything off. When it comes to work, I like my alone time and starting before the sun is up so that I can switch to motherhood as soon as the family wakes. And if I am up all night, worried and fretting, and my mind spinning until 3 a.m. because that's what insomnia does to me,

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as much as it has changed ours. Robert Tellis, the politician, the local Las Vegas politician. I sat right behind him in court, actually. I didn't realize how short he was. And, you know, I couldn't see his face often, but I would see his head nod and shake. I'm out of the gate, Robert Tellis. No poker face for him, shaking his head, looking aghast, looking concerned, looking shocked. we saw some heartbreaking photos, including the scene, the crime scene in court.

And he, I don't know what it was. He looked concerned like, oh, no, I don't know. But help us understand a politician, innocent until proven guilty, on trial now. The evidence doesn't look good for him. But a politician who would be so upset that a story is done by him, because also I just want to say, that's the nature of being a politician. If you're going to make yourself a public figure, expect scrutiny, behave if you're a politician, deal with frustrations if you're a politician, but this is just something you don't see often.

So help us understand Robert Talas, who is this guy? Before we get into this, there has been more violence towards journalists over the last four or five years than there's ever been, or probably, let's say, the last four to eight years. And so it's important to know that violence has increased. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I know that journalists have been under attack more so than ever before. So I think that's worth noting.

I don't know that this is, if this pertains specifically to politicians, I think it's unusual that politicians would do something like this or allegedly do something like this in the sense that, yes, when you run for elected office, you know there's a chance you might lose. And most politicians, I think, they recognize that. Maybe that's under question these days too, but most politicians understand that losing is part of the process and when you lose, you bow out. Now, what happened here was that German's stories impacted, probably impacted his loss

in his reelection. He lost in the primary. So he ran as a Democrat and he finished third. So this is a guy who in 2018, he wins the election for public administrator. And four years later, he's badly beaten after these articles come out. Most of these articles are coming out in 2022. Spring of 2020 is when they start coming out, March of 2022. So and the election is.

The articles that Garmin is writing about Talas and the corruption in his office. Right. So he loses, but he loses badly. He actually finishes third in a Democratic primary, which is pretty bad for somebody who's been in an elected office. And I think, and tell us his mind that German certainly is a big part of that. So there's a larger issue here about, we'll get to this later, but there's a larger issue here about, I think, that concerns all of us about human beings process negative information, right? I think that's a part of this story. That's a really important part of this story.

And people have actually been saying here, you know, truth can be under attack all of these things. And that makes me wonder if it's because do we not have the ability to process information we don't like anymore or negative information and including the subject matter or the subject at hand dealing with negative information about himself? I think the important issue here is not to frame this as a story about. a angry, irate politician. Why should all of us care about this?

Why should any of us care about this? Because it's really a story about processing or coping with negative feedback or negative information. And that concerns every one of us, whether it's at work, whether a loved one gives us feedback, right? This is really a story at heart about trying to be honest with someone about something. It just so happens that the person who's reporting that information, who's being honest is a reporter.

Right. But that's the heart of this. And so I think we should reflect on that a little bit later. So this is a story about how sometimes the truth or the hard truth affects all of us. One of my difficulties here is that even the review journal, where you used to work, they're framing this as a story about a journalist who's telling the truth to power or, you know, about a corrupt politician. But yeah, in the end, this is really a story about being honest with someone else.

So this is a story about how human beings communicate and how they deal with honesty and how they deal with negative information. And every single one of us has to deal with that issue. So I hope this is a story that our listeners can see as a story that has more universal appeal. I don't want to frame it. I mean, I'm getting ahead of myself because this is going to be my ending. But now it's not. So we'll come back to it. But let's try to answer that question.

What is it about negative information? I mean, it's going to be a little different in this case. But what is it about when someone's honest with you and they give you negative feedback? What is it about human beings that struggles to hear that or to integrate that? Right. And that's the issue here. I don't know. I've been asking you this question for years, actually.

I feel like this is a question we have at our dinner table often. And I don't know if I fully grasp why, you know? So part of the answer, this is an extreme case, but part of the answer is going to occur from our analysis of Tullis, Robert Tullis. So why don't we, why don't we dig into that? Let's start with how this even became relevant to Jeff German, how this even became a story. And the way it became a story was that in the public administrator's office, which a county office, Clark County office in Las Vegas, several employees reached out to him and said, we're having a really hard time.

This guy, Robert Tallis, he came into our workplace in January of 2019, and it's been absolute terror. And explain what a public administrator does. He was the Clark County public administrator. Beth is asking in many. Yeah. So his job essentially was to when people were deceased. And there was, there were no wills or trusts or any means of dealing with the estate.

It was his job. It was the job of the public administrator to try to figure out what to do with those resources. And so 2019, take us back there again. Thanks for just explaining that. And this is his office. This is, he's come into office. He's here, Robert Tallis, 2019. And they're saying it's chaos, those in his office.

Right. So you have, yeah, you have a bunch of long-time employees in this office. So apparently, I don't know, maybe not immediately, but at some point, TELUS brings in some of his own people, but because this is government, there's a number of employees that already worked there. You can't just root people out. You can't evacuate people from government jobs because you don't like them. Clearly, there's the process and there's protocols and regulations and policies around firing long-time government employees. And that's true in most states. And it's true in Nevada. So he comes into this office and I'm going to, let me see if I have the quote here. I'm going to use some words from some of his employees that were already there. One of his employees described him as a monster. So she said, quote, in describing Mr. Tell us, monster is the right word. another employee said, this workplace felt dangerous, unquote.

Many of the employees believed that he was creating a hostile workplace. There was harassment going on, apparently. They described bullying occurring in the workplace. One of the things he did is he cut off all communication between quote workers. So he limited the ability of any of the staff of his team. I guess it wasn't a team because he, He effectively ended that in the sense that nobody could interact with each other. So he isolated every member of the group.

They couldn't talk to each other. They had to report to him. He flattened the hierarchy. So there was a hierarchy in the office. There was somebody that was number two below him. Her name is Rita Reed. Rita Reed was effectively demoted to the position of everyone else in the office, which is that they all reported only to,

Robert Tellis, and they could not communicate with each other. So in other words, Talis was effectively this authoritarian figure who ran this office with a huge amount of control and oversight and micromanaging. And he did so by separating his staff. I don't know exactly physically how he did it, but he didn't allow them to communicate. He didn't allow social interactions. He didn't allow. So all the things that we, all the cliches that we typically hear about today,

about teamwork, right, and communication and team building, right, all that stuff. Tell us was the opposite of that. Tell us if healthy communication is seen as one of the tenants of a healthy workplace, then he had the complete opposite of that. Sounds like a tyrant. Yeah. I mean, okay. I use the term authoritarian, but that's the term I'm sure that his staff would use probably to describe him.

Monster would be, I guess, that is a term that actually one of the staff members used. If we look at that situation, and so this is, by the way, this is why Jeff German picks up the story, because he has this sense that something's wrong here. It's so extreme. So I would imagine that people reach out to Jeff German and say, hey, look, our workplace is difficult. I'm having trouble here. And maybe he does a little investigation. He's like, you know what?

Join the club. Like every workplace has dysfunctions. Every workplace has, right, some bad managers. But this particular workplace was of a different order of magnitude. Just the complete isolation. In fact, it was so bad that one of the workers who worked in a cage, because part of this job involved taking possession of property from estates that had to be held in a cage, there was a worker who was in this cage who actually started developing thoughts of self-harming because she felt so removed and so isolated. And he was quite negative towards her. He made some very hostile comments towards her that she actually considered harming herself.

Thankfully, she didn't and her other co-workers talked her out of it, but she was really depressed and really distraught. So we're talking about a situation that's so extreme that it gets Jeff Gehrman's attention, and he starts reporting on it. Let's think about some of the psychological elements of a workplace like this. I think the first thing that occurs to me, when you think about a workplace where everyone's isolated and they can only report to the supervisor, To me, one thing that really stands out in that situation is paranoia. So I think there's some element of paranoia here in the sense that he's extremely sensitive to what other people are saying about him, probably. He doesn't want people talking behind his back, right? He's trying to control this environment because he's got this perception that people are talking behind his back.

So he's trying to control the narrative in the office. So you have this paranoia going on here that other people are somehow, trying to harm him or talk negatively about him, and he wants to control that. And that brings us into another component of this, which is we've talked about this with J.P. Miller and a lot of, on the Micah Miller case and a lot of other offenders, and that is coercive control. And so coercive control is, we've talked about this before, a pattern of behavior with the intent to exert power and control over other people through manipulation and intimidation.

And so the important thing about coercive control is it's not just a one-off incident. So often you see patterns, of course, who control on domestic violence. A lot of people think of domestic violence as one violent incident. But when you situate domestic violence into a larger picture or larger framework, this issue, of course, of control often comes into play, which is someone who's really wanting to control the environment so that nothing can go sideways or so that they don't look bad. And so you have, if you look at this work environment that Robert Tellis is setting up,

these are two elements that stand out right away. You're looking at, obviously, there's a lot of control here. So he's trying to control the conversations. He's trying to control people's perceptions of him. You have both this combination of paranoia and coercive control. And so I think that's a good place to start. When I see an environment like this at work, always think, I wonder what it's like at home.

Me too. That's what I wonder. Right. And so you have to figure, like, just as someone who's been in this field for many years, you know, when I learn that someone was a tyrant in the workplace, you can translate that almost universally into someone being a tyrant at home. And this is a guy who's been married for years. He has three children. One of the things, after Jeff Gehrman was murdered, assassinated, the review journal staff out of respect and homage to him, they began, obviously, their own investigation, and they began to really dig deep in this. And they found, not surprisingly, they found that in March of 2020, when he was still working for the public administrator's office,

he had a domestic battery charge. Correct. In fact, in fact, do you, we have some of that, don't we? We do. This is the employer of Jeff Garum. and this is stuff they uncovered in their own investigation. They had to report on their co-workers' murder, and then the moment they started doing that,

they started investigating themselves and actually helped with the investigation. I'm not trying to free. Like, I'm not trying to see it. All right. Do you want to hold you here. I'll bring my car up. Don't do anything more stupid than you've already done, please.

Oh, my God. What hell am I? Our cameras. on cameras can anybody tell me who I hit who the hell did I hit who did I hit because I didn't hit anybody who did I hit who did I hit because I didn't hit anybody this is like this is like totally like you guys want to take me down because I'm a public official no we don't I didn't hit anybody I just touched you to you guys want to take me down because I am a public official.

You don't, you just want to take me down because I'm a public official. I did not touch anybody. I haven't heard anybody. I am just being approached. And, you guys want to take me down because I'm a public official. Why did you, why do you take me down?

I haven't touched anybody. I haven't touched anybody. This is a civil rights violation. You guys want to. take me down. I haven't got somebody. This is my home. I haven't heard anybody. I haven't touched anybody. I love my family. I love my wife. You guys want to take me down. That's all it is. Why are you taking money from my frigging house? Why do you have any suspicious? Sit back. Why do you have any costs to take me home? Why do you have any costs take me?

You are not making any sense right now. Do you have any cost to take me? Brian, do you have any cause to take me? So there you go. There you go. Yeah. So it turns out that he was arrested, so he's saying you don't have any cause. They had plenty of cause because his wife made the call

and his wife had said that he tried to choke her to death. Well, I don't know if she used that term. But the choking doesn't take a lot of pressure to actually harm someone very seriously. It's life-threatening. It's absolutely life-threatening. So the example that I was given in my field is that when you open a soda can, just the amount of pressure it takes to open a soda can, it's slightly more than that. If you're choking someone, it's just a little bit more of the pressure than that to kill someone. Most people don't realize that the throat is extraordinarily sensitive.

It's extremely vulnerable to injury. And choking is a really serious crime in the sense that you can harm someone very seriously with not that much pressure. And so the crime here is he choked her. He choked her apparently fairly hard. And you saw the response, right, that you're trying to take me down because I'm a public official. Yeah, I might have missed that part. Just kidding. Joke.

Yeah, right. You have to listen really carefully to hear that part. Right. It's all he says. Yeah. By the way, if anybody didn't catch it, he's a public official. And I love the cops. They're like, yeah, they're going to love the body cam footage.

Then I'll keep it on. Yeah. No, he says your supervisor. I love that. Your supervisor is going to love the city. He is the supervisor. He's the head honcho, which by the way, explains why this gets dismissed. So this arrest, and he's,

charged with domestic battery and then this gets dismissed it gets buried it gets he's a lawyer by the way too so the news never saw it and i want to explain this as far as a newsroom goes you're in a newsroom and everybody's listening to the scanner and you get the arrest list every day and you have producers that are helping go through all of the mugshots and all the different counties every day learning what happened and you and you're listening to the police scanner as well and then take that in Las Vegas where crime is something that happens, you know, it's infamous for their organized crime and for drug use. And when you have a DV, like a domestic violence, or you have, you know, people being pulled over, sometimes those things can get overlooked because there's just so much.

And in this case, a DV with a politician should be all eyes on it. You would have thought it would be a front page morning news. But this particular story in Las Vegas got buried. And nobody uncovered this body cam footage until after his arrest. So I just want to go forward. And then as John's explaining, he's a public official, he's the supervisor, he's an attorney, it got dismissed before anyone could find it. Go ahead. I just want to explain how that was a wild thing too, that nobody even saw this.

So let's go back to, I talked about paranoia. Let's go back to paranoia. Here it is. This is more paranoia. You want to take me down because I'm a public official. In other words, he's creating this narrative. that they're out to get him. He's creating this narrative, right, that he's the target.

You know, it's not the fact that he tried to choke out his wife and nearly killed her that matters. What matters here is he's a public official. So, of course, you know, obviously, too, by the way, like, there's clearly this tremendous sense of self-importance. Well, I'm a public official. You know, you're out to get me. I mean, they don't know who he is. He's not the mayor of Las Vegas. He's not a particularly well-known public official.

But here he acts like he is. And so you see this paranoia here. You also see, we talked about coercive control, you also see that in the home. So my question was, what's the probability that if someone is controlling at work, if they're exerting coercive control at work and this pattern of intimidation at work, what's the chance that they're doing that at home? Here you go. He's doing it at home.

So you have this paranoia. You can see this from this arrest. you have this paranoia and you have this course of control, which, although he's only arrested once that we're aware of, my guess is that his home is probably being run very similar to the workplace. So I, you know. We can suspect that, I think, with, yeah. It's possible that it's not completely that way, but.

More likely it is. It seems to me there's a good probability of that occurring in the home. So these are, these are some of the pieces that I think we're going to start putting together to explain what's going on here. So how do you get to the assassination of Jeff Gehrman? You've got paranoia. You've got coercive control. And now let's go back to the video we rolled at the beginning.

And let's talk about that. That's going to be the next piece of this puzzle. The assailant leaves Mr. Garman there in the rock, has his bag with him, and walks down the street. He goes further down the street. toward wintergreen and he ultimately goes back to that maroon SUV. That maroon SUV though then proceeds south on wintergreen and it actually heads back in the direction of German's house

and you can kind of see it parked in front. The individual gets out, goes back towards where the body is and then the individual returns back to the Yukon. We've got paranoia. we've got coercive control. Now we have this piece. And so I think I would start with, I would liken this to,

you leave your house in the morning for work. And the minute you leave the driveway, you wonder, did I turn off the coffee maker? And then you're a couple miles from the home and you're thinking, you know what? And by the way, this is like pre-Kerrick. I'm not talking about old school coffee makers,

You know, I remember when I was in grad school, I coffee fueled part of my success in grad school for sure. And I remember leaving the home to go downtown Los Angeles and wondering if I left the coffee maker on sometimes. And so sometimes I'd go, most of the time I realize I turned it off, but sometimes I would go back and check. But not often, but that is a function, that type of thought process is a function of obsessive-compulsive disorder. And so the reason he's going back, now let me make it clear. I'm not saying he has obsessive compulsive disorder. What I'm saying is that I think he has some obsessive compulsive features. There's a big difference.

I don't know if he has obsessive compulsive disorder. I think he has some obsessive compulsive qualities. So what's taking him back is he commits this crime, or he allegedly commits this crime. And he's not convinced or he's not sure that German is deceased. So even though there's tremendous risk in going back, he doesn't care. He's going back because he needs to double check and triple check and quadruple check the crime scene to make sure that he's deceased

so that the victim, if he's not deceased, won't be taken to the hospital and identify him. But this is an important part of this puzzle because, and I want to make it quick, we always get this question. When I talk about OCD or features of OCD and criminals, people say, well, I know people with OCD. and we're not violent. Yes, that's true.

It's not the OCD that's leading to the crime. It's the OCD with the paranoia, with the coercive control, with violent ideation. It's the combination. The difficulty here is when you have these features of OCD and you obsess about, so imagine someone's writing these horrible articles about you and describing this hostile workplace you've created, people in your workplace are calling you a monster in public for these articles, and you're obsessed about it.

You can't let it go. You're ruminating. You're brooding over this. You're obsessing about it. That's where this becomes an important issue. Because this guy, Robert Tell us, I'm guessing, I'm speculating here, but I'm guessing, because nobody goes back to a crime scene unless there's some obsessive qualities. This guy, it's like the coffee maker times a million.

He cannot let go with the fact that someone is pointing the finger at him and someone is pointing out these flaws in his workplace. This is the one picture we have of Jeff Gehrman and Robert Tellis in the same room. It's when Gehrman goes to Robert Tellis' workplace and holy cow. And this is a moment because Jeff Gehrman is a good journalist, he reached out. to tell us multiple times and asked for his side of the story and asked for him to do an interview. Just as a good journalist should, it wasn't like he was going behind his back. He was saying, hey, I'm hearing this.

I received this video of you having an affair with your coworker and, you know, and I've got video of you in the back seat of a car and I'm hearing this. Why don't you tell us your side of the story? And so look at this moment, you know. Right. To me, that's like the quintessential menacing look. And notice that that Jeff Gehrman is, he doesn't want to look at him. Jeff Gehrman's not establishing eye contact because I think he senses that Tellus is extremely angry.

That's classic kind of right. That's this kind of classic menacing villainous gaze. Mm-hmm. a classic, you know, the kind of the classic menacing villainous gaze towards the victim. And this is a really, to me, this is a really creepy moment because in many ways, I think this foreshadows what's going to happen. I mean, at the time, obviously, we couldn't have known that. But this particular moment, wow. And you don't always say creepy.

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Use that with happy mammoth.com for 15% off today. One of the interesting, one of the really interesting components of this case, too, is that when law enforcement finally got a search warrant, which was on September 7th, so the crime occurs on September 2nd, they find the body on September 3rd, and then four days later, four or five days later, law enforcement finally gets a search warrant. So it's essentially five days after the crime. They go into Tellis' home and they search it. And in the garage, they find the straw hat that they have, the person wearing on video,

they find that the tennis shoes, the exact tennis shoes that the person's wearing on the video. They find the gym bag that the person is carrying on the video. The hat is cut up. You can see it's cut here, but there's actually another picture where he literally is cutting the hat up into little squares, and they're in a pile. So that was showed during open statements. And so there's a couple of questions. here. Number one, why does he have this evidence in his garage five days after the commission

of a crime? That in and of itself is a little strange, right? Like most criminals would get rid of evidence almost instantaneously after they commit a crime. But yet, five days after the search warrant is executed, they find the straw hat, it's cut up into little squares, it's cut up into little pieces, they find the tennis shoes, they too are being cut up. And so I think the answer to that is another piece of this puzzle, which is going to prove the points I've already been making. And that is, number one, I think the reason this evidence is still there is because of the paranoia. He does not want to go outside the home. He's afraid that I think there's a part of him that's afraid of being seen or caught. He's afraid that people are surveying the home

potentially. There's some paranoia here. It's true, actually, that some members of the review general staff are outside his home. They're not outside 24-7, but they're outside. his home and they do catch a picture of him washing his car. But so I think part of the reason that Evans is still there is because there's some paranoia about leaving the home and being caught, but also it brings into play this issue of obsessive-compulsive features in the sense that he's obsessing over the best way to dispose of this evidence. Apparently, I'm guessing, he's concerned that if he just takes it to, say, the Las Vegas

city dump, that if there, if there's a. The evidence is intact that somehow it'll be easier to find. And so here you have, I think he's obsessing over how to dispose of this evidence. He's brooding. He's ruminating about what to do with it. And so somehow he figures out that he's going to only be content if he cuts it up into pieces. And somehow, I mean, again, this isn't particularly rational, but we're not talking about someone who's particularly rational.

But I think he comes to the conclusion to some level that the best way to dispose of this is to cut it up in a little pieces and that's going to take time. There's this obsessive quality going on there as well. It's the same reason he returns to the crime scene because he has to be sure in his mind. It has to be perfect. It's like going back to turn out the coffee maker. If he disposes of it in the wrong way, he's going to obsess over doing it incorrectly. He's going to obsess over being caught. but if he cuts it up into little pieces

and somehow does something different with it, I don't know what that is because he gets caught, but then he can rest. He cannot worry about it as much. I mean, he's probably going to obsess over it anyway. But here you also see this feature of this obsessive-compulsive quality that's kind of driving him, and it's why he can't let go of those stories that German wrote.

That's the second piece of the puzzle. That hat's a puzzle right there, as is that shoe. I know, and the funny thing about it And then the most funny thing about it is that he didn't get rid of it, and they found the evidence. Because there it is. So this brings us, I think, to the key component of this. So we have paranoia. We have coercive control.

We have some obsessive compulsive features, maybe not the disorder, but certain obsessive compulsive features. And then let's go back to the workplace and think about how he's isolating all the members of his staff and how there's paranoia there. But what is it that he's really trying to accomplish? The question is, by separating staff and not allowing to communicate and, you know, kind of creating this hostile workplace and creating this intimidation, what is it he's trying to do by doing that? Well, that is the ultimate question because the defense in opening statements, I was there when the defense brought up countermotive, saying that the motive doesn't make sense. And I talk about this in my lunch live during trial, but they said that killing the journalist doesn't kill the story. And so the idea, the motive, what does he really want? The motive was that he wanted to stop the story.

But I don't buy that. I don't buy that it's as simple as like, oh, I'm going to get this story to stop, so I'm going to kill Jeff Garman. So I'm very curious what you think. I'm going to disagree with you on that, but I'll explain why. And it has to do with this next piece. So I think we can't talk about this story without talking about narcissism to some degree. Everybody's been talking about it.

You don't use the word yucky or creepy and you don't use narcissism a lot. I didn't use the word like yucky yet, did I? No, you didn't. You said creepy. It took me a mile. Creepy and now we're on narcissism. Let me clarify. Before we talk about narcissism, let me clarify that I'm not diagnosing this guy with narcissistic personality disorder.

I'm saying something somewhere to OCD. what I'm saying is I think there's some narcissistic features here. So I don't know, you know, I haven't met with Robert Tulles. I haven't done an evaluation. I haven't tested him. I don't know if this guy would qualify for the personality disorder. But let's talk in general about this idea of narcissism and how it might apply here. And that is in this way that in many ways at the heart of narcissism is some version of impression management.

The narcissist at heart, they want to control how they're viewed. They want to control how people perceive them. That's why he's isolating people at work. That's probably why he's choking out his wife, because she probably made some derogatory comment. She probably made some slight about him or his ego, something he took personally. I don't know what it was, I'm guessing,

but he lost his composure and he choked her. So the answer to your question, by the way, about if you kill the journals, you don't kill the story. I'll get to that in a little bit. But I want to... Okay, because even Brian's with me here, like, the story was going to run the next day. It was too late to stop the story, right? You know, the FOIAs have been requested. So I'm going to read this from an article called narcissistic personality disorder,

diagnostic and clinical challenges. It's by Eve Callagore. Caligore is C-A-L-I-G-O-R. Eve Caligore, by the way, has done a lot of research on personality disorders and excellent articles on personality disorders. This is from the American Journal of Psychiatry, Volume 172, May of 2015. This is page 416. Here's what Caligore at Al say about narcissism. A specific form of self or identity dynamic is at the core of narcissistic pathology.

Rather than the flexible and reality-based self-experience that characterizes normal identity formation, the sense of self and narcissistic personality disorder is brittle and somewhat removed from reality. What characterizes narcissistic personality disorder across the spectrum is a more or less fragile sense of self, that is predicated on maintaining a view of oneself as exceptional. Maintaining a grandiose sense of self can provide a more or less stable self-experience for the individual with narcissistic personality disorder, but comes at a cost, requiring a retreat from or denial of realities that do not support grandiosity,

and leaving the individual excessively reliant on external feedback, to support not only positive self-regard, but also self-definition. So what Caligore is saying essentially is there's this tremendous desire to be seen as exceptional. And not only that, the way that one maintains the sense of exceptionality or grandiosity is by relying on external feedback from the environment to support positive self-regard and self-deafety. So narcissism at heart is a defense mechanism. It's a defense mechanism where we try to control other's perceptions, other people's perceptions of us so that they see us as being exceptional in some way or special. And we do that usually by relying on external feedback.

And so if you go back to the office place, what he's trying to do is he's trying to limit any communication among employees so that they can't talk. They can't talk negatively of him. He wants to create an environment where he's only interacting directly with employees and the feedback that he's getting from that will support in some ways. I know it's it's a little crazy, but will support this view he has himself as being exceptional. Nailed narcissism in my brain, what I know of it. So the goal of a narcissist in general, and again, I'm not saying he's the personality disorder. I'm simply saying that he seems to have some narcissistic features.

The goal is to look one's best in an effort to ensure that other people will admire you and or envy you. And that's also, by the way, what's going on when he's arrested. You want to take me down because I'm a public official. In other words, he's somewhat important. He's someone accession. They wouldn't take down a normal person. They just want to take down this guy because he's so important. And this is consistent, by the way.

So during the hearings, during the arraignment, tell us in the courtroom, he said publicly during these hearings that the prosecution just wanted to embarrass him. It's the same dynamic that if somebody wants to embarrass you, then they clearly, there's the paranoia there too, but they're clearly out to get you because you're so exceptional. And there's there's some implication there that there's envy, that they're attacking him because he, you know, in his grandiosity, he's special and exceptional. and that's why they're going after him. Of course, it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that he choked out his wife in the past when the charges of Smith or that he murdered someone or he assassinated someone as he lay in wait to ambush a reporter. That wouldn't have anything to do with it.

And so, you know, when you combine these elements, when you combine the paranoia, the coercive control, the features of OCD, some features of narcissism, you really have an potentially explosive situation. And so that's what you have here. So the next question for me is, okay, we've got all these ingredients. And I'm going to get to your question, by the way,

about killing the story. We'll talk about that. Well, let's talk about it now, actually. I'm ready. Let's talk about it. I want to. Part of the answer is in what I just read, in the sense that let me,

let me reiterate a little bit. What I just read from Caligore about narcissism, I want to point out something quite specific here, that rather than the flexible and reality-based self-experience that characterizes normal identity formation, the sense of self and narcissistic personality disorder is brittle and, quote, somewhat removed from reality, unquote,

somewhat removed from reality. Whatever your thing, it could be anything. Canada helps you make that thing a thing. Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design with our magic AI tool things. You can social media your thing, generate images or videos of your thing, make decks for presentations to show your thing. Whatever needs to be done for your thing, Canva can make it an even better and bigger

thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing. Somewhat. Right. Well, in this case, quite removed from reality. You're right. There's a spectrum. And later in the same quote I read earlier, quote,

the individual of narcissistic personality disorder comes at a cost, requiring a retreat from or denial of realities that do not support grandiosity. So you have this denial of reality. So the answer to your question is, and by the way, this is where the defense gets completely wrong. So one of their arguments was that killing a journalist does not tell a story. But Robert Tellis does not understand that.

Robert Tellis does not understand that because he's removed from reality. Okay. Robert Tellis is engaged in this infantile, magical thinking that sometimes accompanies narcissism. Gotcha. That is true. It does, man. It really, really does. He does believe he can make this story disappear by killing the journalist because of these

narcissistic qualities. He's removed from reality, and he's engaged in this magical thinking that somehow the story will disappear if he murders the journalist who's writing the story. So for a rational, normal person, yeah, okay, I understand that very well. If I go out and harm a journalist, the story's going to continue. I'll just continue, but get bigger and probably switch lanes and, you know, not end well for you. Exactly. But he doesn't understand that because he's operating. operating from a very childlike, magical thinking perspective, at least at this moment.

So part of the trigger here is that the day before the murder, Tellis learns he's having an affair in the office. He learns that the emails that Jeff Gehrman was able to obtain are going to be a part of a story that's coming out the next day that's going to expose the affair and it's going to expose Robert Tellis. And in addition to that, 15 hours prior to the murder, a FOIA request, excuse me, was emailed to his office. So you have kind of this, not only this really childish, magical thinking, but you have something else too. And that is that when you combine all these elements, especially in some ways the features of OCD, and knowing this story is going to come out, you have this buildup of emotion, you have this anxiety and this fear and this shit. game that's just brewing in this guy. It's been brewing in this guy for months. And he wants to

purge himself of these unbearable feelings and these unbearable thoughts. And the only way he could do that is to take action. So the compulsive part of obsessive-compulsive features, when you have these magical thoughts and these unbearable feelings of fear and anxiety and rage, helplessness, I'm sure Tellus is feeling all of those things. And then there's this challenged through how exceptionally you are, right? When you have all of these things, the only way he can purge himself from those in his mind's eye is to engage in violence.

And that's obviously what happened. That's what he does. I mean, he's not convicted yet. Let's say that's what's alleged to have happened. And that's how you get there. That's how you get to murder in this case. Has losing weight and getting healthier been on your mind lately? Have you heard about groundbreaking GLP-1 treatments

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this book because there is a moral issue here. And this, I don't think this is talked about enough in necessarily in cases with these where there are kind of narcissistic features. But I'm going to read, this is from the first page, page one of the book, Virtuous Violence, quote, most violence is morally motivated. People do not simply justify or excuse their violent actions after the fact. At the moment they act, people intend to cause harm or death to someone they feel should suffer or die. That is, people are impelled to violence when they feel that to regulate certain social

relationships, imposing suffering or death is necessary, natural, legitimate, desirable, condoned, admired, and ethically gratifying. In short, most violence is the exercise of moral rights and obligations. And here's the important point, or here's the summary of their theory, which is virtuous violence. Quote, people are morally motivated to do violence to create, conduct, protect, redress, terminate, or mourn social relationships with a victim or with others. We call our theory virtuous violence theory. In other words, Robert Tellis feels morally superior and morally justified in murdering Jeff German because he injured him with these stories and that he, in his view, in Tellis' view,

he has every right to, as the authors of this theory state, to redress that violence and to seek revenge. And Tellus's mind, this violence is completely morally justified because he's right and German is wrong and he sees himself as the victim. And truthfully, the defense, I'm sure largely because Talus wanted them to, the defense essentially agreed with them. The defense was that Robert Tellis was a hero. because he was rooting out corporate corruption

and that people wanted to harm him because he was doing good by rooting out this corruption. And in fact, he, as this suggests, as this idea of virtuous violence suggests, he was the victim, that he was being targeted unfairly, he was set up, he was framed,

we've got it all wrong. The real hero of this story, of course, like a lot of felons feel, is Robert tell us. And he's morally justified. And the violence, I mean, he's saying he didn't do it, but I'm sure at some level he knows he did, but he feels morally justified. I think that's a part of the story that's important because rarely do I see cases where this kind of presentation is so morally virtuous in the eyes of the perpetrator. Just the way he did it in broad daylight.

Well, in broad daylight, it also explains you were asking earlier about his body language, right? All of that comes up. this moral superiority, you see it in his body language in court. He grimaces, he scowls, he frowns, he mumbles. Several times when people are on the stand, he would mumble to his attorneys about, I couldn't exactly see what he was saying, but he would mumble derogatory comments about how they were wrong or stupid or right. And so you have, you see it in court.

You see it with the other thing that's going on in court is that if this is a guy with all the qualities I just talked about and coercive control is one, of them. Then by sitting in court and having the finger pointed at him, he feels a complete loss of control. So the opposite of course of control is loss of control. And that, by the way, I think that puts him at some risk to act out in court. I don't know how bad it will be. If he gets convicted, for example, I don't know what's going to happen. It'll be an interesting moment. I don't think this is a guy who's going to take that easily or accept it. Because he's almost delusional.

He is not in a reality. He's not in reality, and he's got this moral superiority. The reason he engages in this violence, it's obviously not rational. But he does think that he can make the story disappear. He thinks by killing Jeff German, he does think at some level that the story will go away, that the problem will be solved. He feels like this is a moral right that he has. He's morally entitled to do what he did.

He feel there is this moral component, this virtuous component here. You see it in court in his nonverbals and his body, like his expressions. You see it in the crime. You see it in the fact that he's already acted out in court a little bit during his hearings and his arraignment. He's already talked about being embarrassed. So you see all these components coming together. The narcissistic features, the obsessive, impulsive features, the paranoia, the course of control, right? These are all, by the way,

all of these components coming together are all, you know, a pottercade for violence. And that's obviously where this lands. Sadly, you know, sadly, that's where this ends up. Tragically, that's where this ends up. You mentioned that we need to talk about truth. I need to talk about this with you. Why? Why are we so afraid as human beings? of negative information. Why are journalists being violence towards journalists, the truth tellers of our society? Why is it higher than ever before? What is going on? Can we expand your question a little bit and say, why is it so difficult for people to accept honest feedback? Maybe that's a better way. That's a great way. Why is it so difficult for people to accept honest feedback?

And so I think we can apply this to tell us to, obviously, I think we, I talked about some specific elements that probably led to this extreme violence. But most of us have some capacity to deal with reality. And most of us, thankfully, aren't going to resort to that level of violence. So, but in general, I think some of the qualities that make it difficult for, for human beings to accept or be open to feedback would be, number one, poor ego strength that a lot of people, see discrepant information or dissonant information or information that conflicts with how their identities as a challenge, as something to be dismissed and rejected. And so, and the reason that is is because people with poor ego strength, they're not willing to change. They're not willing

to accept feedback that clashes with how they perceive themselves. And you certainly see that with Robert Tellus. I mean, again, Tellus is an extreme form of that. But, But in general, I think there's, I've talked about self-verification theory. We all, in many ways, we all want to verify or see ourselves as being consistent. And so when our perceptions of ourselves are challenged in some way, I think there's an initial impulse to reject it because it might lead to change. It might lead to, it might expose certain flaws about ourselves that we don't want to know or we don't, you know, we don't want to see. So we all have these blind spots. And I think it's more detrimental or harder to accept feedback, negative feedback, when we have poor ego strength.

And related to that is the idea of rigidity that, you know, when people, so somebody, I talked about these obsessive compulsive features, potentially applying to Robert Tellis. OCD is by definition. And again, I don't mean the diagnosis. I mean features of OCD. You know, I talked about many times when I was in grader. school. This was years ago, thankfully, and I haven't done it since. But, you know, my, did I turn out the coffee maker, right? Like, I have never been diagnosed with OCD. I don't have OCD, but, but I have some obsessive. I do have some obsessive qualities in terms of,

did I, right, I worry about little things like turning off the coffee maker. So that's what I mean. That the more obsession someone has, potentially the more rigidity and the more kind of ritualistic behavior we might engage in, then, you know, the more difficult it is to, I think, to accept feedback because we're immersed in our own little worlds and we engage in certain habits and rituals which make change really difficult. So I think rigidity would be another part of that equation. And part of that, by the way, would be closed-mindedness. So with rigidity would come close-mindedness. Some people just temperamentally are more open-minded and more willing to take risks in life. And some people are, and this could be more nature, by the way. Some people

are more close-minded. And they want to stay in their shells. They don't want to take risks. They're not open to new information. They're not particularly adaptable. And so that would be, you know, another reason why accepting honest feedback, especially if it's negative, would be really difficult. So rigidity, open-mindedness. What was the third? Rigidity, closed-mindedness, poor ego strength, a lack of resilience. until I mentioned that, but that kind of goes hand in hand with rigidity. Rigidity by definition is kind of the antithesis of resilience. So resilience would be the capacity to embrace change.

It would be the capacity to adapt to the environment. So if the environment is requiring certain things of you, you know, typically most normal people would adapt. And I mean, the question is, why do human beings struggle to change when they're given honest feedback? Because clearly, if Robert tell us, you know, a healthy response to Jeff German's articles would have been an apology from Robert Tellis, right? A healthy response would have been some type of resilience, maybe an apology, maybe changing

the workplace, maybe saying, what can I learn from this? I've made mistakes. What can I do better, right? None of that's happening here. What Robert Tellus is doing is the complete opposite. He's denying reality. He's brooding over what's happening. For all the reasons we talked about, he can't learn from this. So that's, he can't adapt and learn. So that's another part of this too, is that resilience requires, resilience is the ability to learn.

Resilience is the openness to new information. And none of that's happening with, with tell us. And so I think the larger issue here, the reason why all of us should care about this story is because that's really what this is about. Sure, it's about a guy, it's about a politician or a public administrator

that murders a journalist. Yes, that's what it's about. But larger, it's about why don't human beings have the capacity to change or to accept honest feedback? And I want to point out, too, we're talking mostly about honest feedback, about our situations. This is it. But I want to point out, too, that information is hard. All these things relate to something as simple as our worldview, too. when we have a worldview about the way the world should be even outside of ourselves and we're reading the news.

Because I see this all the time. We're reading the news and we know the way that things are supposed to be in our brain and the way we function and the way we live and our morals and we read the news and something doesn't fit right. I'm just talking about truth because I'm a journalist. And I'm talking about all the times I get people that are uncomfortable with, you know, maybe facts I'm laying out there, that it's our worldview to. And so I get this as feedback from readers. I'm talking about when I, you know, for the 10 years I've relayed information as a reporter, you know, and even now, the same thing. It's not even just the information that it's about yourself and someone giving you personal feedback, but it's about the information that you see in

the world. We're rigid. We're closed-minded. We are afraid. What were all the things you said again? I just want to point out that it happens with just information outside of ourselves, too, that makes us not want to believe that maybe truth tellers are telling the truth. Yeah, that would be fear. I mean, that's, that's, fear is a big part of the equation. Fear of change, fear of ultimate fear of loss. Ultimately, if you change, if somebody gives me feedback about something I'm doing wrong or if I'm harming someone or I'm running a dysfunctional workplace,

I might be afraid of that. Because if I change something, I'm giving something up. I'm losing something. And so part of somebody like Robert Talas or anybody running a dysfunctional workplace, part of the strategy is to maintain exactly the same environment over and over again because they're afraid of what might happen

unless they have absolute control over their workplace or their home or whatever, whatever it is. I want to end here. I want to wrap up. My intention, our intention here, I think, was to really pay tribute to Jeff German. And we talked about, so we talked about some of the stories he covered early on. And I told the story about how I knew him when I moved to Las Vegas. But I do want to tell a story that happened not too long ago.

And it only indirectly involves Jeff German. We never met. I never met Jeff German. Neither Lauren nor I know him or have met him. But a couple of years ago, we were pulled into a case that had some potential risk. We didn't necessarily know that at first, but we had some serious concerns about our potential safety if we moved forward with it. And we were thinking about it. And at dinner one night, we were talking about whether we should take it on.

And I turned to Lauren and I said, this is true. I said, what would Jeff Gehrman do? right so it's the old what would that be WWJGD what would Jeff what Jeff German do WWJD yeah you just do Jeff but right what would Jeff do right

WWJD and we both kind of chuckled over that and we instantly came to the conclusion that Jeff German would pursue it that Jeff German was fearless and courageous and a truth seeker And so we decided to take it on.

I won't tell the rest of that story. It turned out to have a lot of twists and turns. But at least initially, we actually asked that question in our dinner table. And we both, in not knowing by the way that Jeff German would be assassinated later, which was a tragic outcome, but we both agreed that we needed to have the courage to do it. And I think that has guided us. I hope I'd like to say that's guided us on our journey into true crime. on this podcast now for for years and we try to be as honest and accurate as we can in spite of the

risks. The other part of that is I think, you know, part of the legacy to me of Jeff Gehrman is, at least for our work, is that there is an aspiration there to attain, I can't speak for you, but I think this is probably true for you, but, you know, just to attain the level of journalistic excellence and integrity that Jeff Gehrman showed and to, really protect our sources. You know, it's taken us years to really build up the, I hope, to build up the trust and credibility to have people reach out to us on some very difficult cases. And we're really, really grateful for that. And again, that's part of who we are. But when we look at people like Jeff Gehrman, you know, there's some inspiration there. Oh, absolutely. I feel

the same way. I certainly want to be a better journalist and be better. And I've definitely need to try to also be introspective and see where I can definitely improve. I think if I'm going to be really honest, though, this story has also made me wonder a little bit more about always doing what Jeff Garerman would do because his incredible journalism also cost in his life. And that's scary. And so it's also made me not just want to aspire to be better, but I also now have to rethink that question to what would he do? Well, he would always seek truth, but are there times now as those that seek true crime information that we should link back to? And I'm not saying that's right or wrong.

I'm just being honest that it has kind of a chilling effect. And it's certainly a case that has affected me and made me think the irony of the case that John's talking about is we probably shouldn't have taken it on. Yeah, right. We learned that the hard way. Yeah, I think for us at least, I think part of this adventure is learning our limits too. Yeah. So, right. And so it's one thing to want to pursue the truth and pursue justice, but it's also important to recognize when there are risks and to recognize our limitations.

And I think that's something we're always going to try to figure out the balance between those as long as we do this. So he's certainly, I certainly want to be a better journalist and I'm personally, prove and be better. I think this week a lot I've been thinking about that. That's why I keep saying it. I actually have had some moments this week where I'm like, I need to be better. But I also hope to be wiser too. And I hope that, I hope the things get better for truth tellers. I didn't tell you, John, but I told the story of when I was pregnant in the news car during the lunch break. And I just, yeah, just know our limits. And hopefully, though, that, you know, we'll all, will continue seeking truth.

I just want to, you know, as a tribute to Jeff Kierman, I feel like I just want to thank him. I mean, you know, thank him for his legacy, for his inspiration as such an exceptional journalist, for his courage, his fearlessness, and his unwavering commitment to truth and justice. And for us, at least, I can't think of a better exemplar or example of someone who does what we do in the true crime. you know, to kind of model and follow in some ways or to at least attain that type of legacy. Thank you, everyone, for being here so much. We appreciate it. And until next time, we'll see you.

As we used to always say at the beginning at our OG podcast, we'll be saving a seat for you. We haven't said that in a long time. I don't know why I just thought of it. It was our, it's our OG. We'll be saving a seat for you. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent.

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